SHARE YOUR STADIUM MEMORIES

The fall of 1957 was special…I was a freshman on the University of Illinois campus in Urbana-Champaign.  All the waiting throughout high school had finally come to an end.  At last I was in college!

Nothing was more special than football Saturdays when my friends and I would don our Pendleton pleated skirts, coordinated sweaters , and bobby socks and saddleshoes for the hike from Allen Hall to Memorial Stadium.  We didn’t need to worry too much about crowds because there weren’t a lot of students headed west to the emporium of sport.

Our seats were in the east main stands somewhere down around the 20 yard line, but by the time the halftime show was over, we could move to prime positions on the 50 yard line.  Those ticket holders had vacated their seats…and probably the stadium.  Would you guess that our football team was not the most inspiring nor successful?  Yes, Dick Butkus and Jim Grabowski were on that team, but they needed much more help in the other positions.

Did we have fun?  We certainly did!  This was Big Ten football in the grandest venue I had ever been in.  This was a fitting location for watching my favorite sport WITHOUT having to march in the band.  And just four years later I would march proudly across the stage constructed on the east side of the Memorial Stadium field to receive my baccalaureate degree.  My love affair with the University of Illinois, football, and the stadium had just begun. 

I still get a thrill as I approach the red bricks and pillars on a sunny, cool Saturday afternoon.  The soaring pillars are stately reminders of other lives, other stories through the years.  And the bricks echo with the ghostly voices of cheering throngs through the years.  And there…a shadowy form in a Pendleton skirt and matching sweater set.

My husband and I have fond memories of watching the Forth of July fireworks inside the stadium.  We remember the large “booms” from the loud ones, that would rock the entire stadium.  The reverberation from them, felt like someone had hit you in the stomach or chest.  It became even more exciting, and sometimes tragic, when one of the fireworks would land in the crowd.  This is one reason they decided to hold the fireworks outside the stadium.

We also remember, when our church (Faith United Methodist, Champaign) would operate the concession stands, for the home football games, in order to raise money for the church.  One very cold night, in the concession stand,  some people were even known to use warm hot dog buns, stuffed under their shirts, in order to keep warm.  These were some of our memories.                             
             
                                                                                                  Betty and Steve Roberts

I very much enjoyed the program.  I grew up in Champaign County.  I watched the construction progress on the Assembly Hall.  I watched fireworks in the great Memorial Stadium as a very young kid.  I remember the 4th of Julys in Memorial Stadium when we celebrated the addition of the 49th and then the 50th stars to the flag when Alaska and Hawaii became states.  I was told at a very young age what those Columns were all about.  I listened to the radio as a young kid while on a tractor disking corn stalks on the farm as Jim Grabowski and Dick Butkus ran on the same field as Red Grange.  I got my Bachelors and Masters degrees in Engineering at Illinois.  I sat in the Block I.  I am an Illini!  I always have been.

As I watch the segments with coach Zook with the “big” renovation behind him an uneasy feeling came over me.  I noticed how large it was and how it dominated the west side of the stadium from the inside.  I noticed how much seemed to have disappeared.  After the program I drove over to Oak Street and parked.  I walked across the “Gold Lot” to First Street.  More and more of the west face of the stadium revealed itself to me as I approached First Street.  When I arrived at First Street the entire west face of the stadium was exposed to view.  I could see that the architects had done a good job in many ways.  The window edges in the new great box aligned with the mid line between pairs of columns.  Yet I did not find it as visually pleasing as it had been.

As I stood there looking a sense of sadness came over me.  I remembered what my parents had told me so many years ago - that each of those columns represented a sacrifice - the sacrifice of the life of a fellow Illini. Now when I look at those columns that represented sacrifice, I no longer see them representing and supporting sacrifice but rather columns supporting above them the interests of money.  I see a Memorial desecrated by money.  I am deeply saddened and troubled by what I see.

Other “True Illini Spirit”

Last Thursday 9/11/2008 I attended a couple of events celebrating the 50th anniversary of the Dept. of Nuclear Engineering at the University of Illinois.  The following day was a much more significant anniversary date for Illinois and for the lives of each of us.

On 9/12/1958 Jack Kilby, a graduate of the University of Illinois in Electrical Engineering, demonstrated the first Integrated Circuit to the management of Texas Instruments.  There has probably been no other invention since that time that has had the impact on our lives as the Integrated Circuit.

However, since that time there have been other important inventions that we each experience every day.  For example:

The Light emitting diode - invented by Nick Holonyak another U of I Graduate

The red-light semiconductor laser used in CD and DVD players and cell phones - again invented by Nick Holonyak

The “Semiconductor Controlled Rectifier” or SCR used in light dimmers and power tools - again Nick Holonyak

So I invite your attention to these web pages:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kilby

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Holonyak_Jr.

And to take a few moments to ponder these inventions and what has come out of the University of Illinois.